1. Field of the Invention
This invention belongs to the art of a floor surface cleaning machine called a "scrubber" for cleaning the surface of a floor by brushing it with a brush while traveling thereon, and more particularly, it relates to an improvement of a squeegee assembly to be used in a floor surface cleaning machine, in which a dirty liquid is sucked up from the floor surface for collection into a dirty liquid storage tank after cleaning.
2. Brief Description of the Related Art
A typical conventional squeegee assembly for the use in a floor surface cleaning machine comprises a squeegee body, a pair of flexible inner and outer blades each made of rubber material are forwardly/backwardly spacedly arranged in parallel relation on an upper surface of the bottom of the squeegee body, and a blower for applying a sucking function to an interval between the pair of blades through a tube and a hose so that a dirty liquid on the floor surface is sucked up for collection into a dirty liquid storage tank. However, if the blades are planar in their floor contacting surfaces, they are overly increased in stiffness and lack in compliance. As a consequence, bottom edges of the square blades tend to intimately contact the floor surface and prohibit the entry of air. In contrast, if the blades are irregular in their floor contacting surfaces, they are likely to turn up and air leakage occurs. As a consequence, a static pressure in the squeegee assembly is lowered to make it impossible for the squeegee assembly to exhibit its full sucking performance.
Attempts have heretofore been made in order to obviate the above problem. One effective attempt was that the flexible front blade in the progressing direction of the squeegee assembly is provided at its floor contacting edge with a notch having an inverted U-shaped configuration.
However, the squeegee assembly having the above-mentioned construction still had the following shortcomings. The flexible front blade gather various dusts (hereinafter referred to as cotton dusts) in such a manner to allow them to gradually rigidly grow in accordance with the progress of the squeegee assembly. The cotton dusts thus grown tend to degrade the sucking force to a dirty liquid by fully covering up the notch of the flexible blade, nesting between the flexible blade and the bottom surface, or choking the suction passage. Moreover, since a lump of cotton dusts thus grown is difficult to be sucked up, it is dragged in that state by the flexible blade, thus leaving a trace of dirty liquid on the floor surface.
It was also contemplated that a lamp of grown cotton dusts can easily be sucked up by increasing the number of notches or forming the notches larger in size such that the entire area is enlarged. However, if the area of each notch is too large, a flow rate of air is increased and a static pressure within the squeegee assembly is lowered. As a consequence, a sucking force to dirty liquid is reduced.
The present invention has been accomplished in view of the above-mentioned situation.